


sisyphus

by fishstick



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Canon, But no, Dreams, Homelessness, M/M, Parallel Universes, Reincarnation, i try to write fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-05-28 08:00:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6321424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishstick/pseuds/fishstick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hell is nothing more than repeating your failures, over and over again, for an eternity.</p><p>(or: Reasons You Should Not Make Small Talk With Strangers At A Bus Stop.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	sisyphus

Parallels had dogged him for as long as he could remember.

When he was a little boy, his parents extended their arms to children less fortunate than he; wards of the state, foster kids entering and leaving his life like a revolving door. The one who'd stayed longest was a dark-haired girl named Mikasa Ackerman - Eren spent a full two years of his young life bonding with her, befriending her, loving her like only a nine-year-old could, only for her to be snatched up into the arms of a family they'd never see again.

That was the first time he'd remembered.

His parents had thought it was the loss of Mikasa that broke him. For sixth months after her departure, they'd dragged him to school in a slump, watched his grades plummet as he shed pound after pound. Sure, he missed her. He missed her more than anything; many nights he was awakened solely by the cold at his side, the gap that her sleeping form used to fill. But the small, empty hole in his heart made by her vacancy mutated into something jet-black and bottomless once he _realized_ \- once her parting words had seared themselves into his brain with a finality that would never depart.

_Thanks for teaching me how to live._

And then the glass had shattered.

The Titans came in dreams, at first. Reoccurring nightmares full of violence worse than any horror flick he'd ever seen - bodies torn in half, shreds of sinew and fractured bones raining from the blood-colored sky. Giant cannibals the size of towers with grotesque, gaping mouths that could swallow a man whole.

In his dreams, Eren had wings; he soared high above the Titans with Mikasa by his side, armed with swords and slicing at the gargantuan masses of flesh. Those dreams gave him an adrenaline rush. He'd wake up with his heart racing, blood pumping and Mikasa's words playing like a broken record in his head. Sometimes there would be others flying beside him, too, but their faces were dark and their forms were shrouded in shadow.

In sixth grade, he met Armin Arlert. They became fast friends; neither one fit into the everyday bump-and-grind of melancholy school life, and they were both used to fighting their way through the world. Armin was like a diamond in the darkness, shining too bright for his own good. His grades were extraordinary, but he didn't care about those - he placed his energy elsewhere, in his fantasies of exploration and perpetual fascination with the world beneath the waves. Armin loved the ocean, and he enchanted Eren with his enthusiasm. Sadly, the only recognition that he ever received for his brilliance was a daily kick in the gut, a few blackmails here and there for homework "help" and notes. He stomached it for a while, and Eren tried to protect him with his fists. Of course, it never went well. They spent hours of their youth in the bathroom, covering each others' busted lips and blackened eyes so that their parents wouldn't see the evidence when they got home.

Eighth grade was the year that they became Shiganshina legends. Despite the pretty boy act, there was a Luciferian sense of justice simmering beneath Armin's soft, golden locks, fanning his terrible thirst for vengeance. Years of torment had driven him to the point of no return, and so - at the ripe young age of fourteen - Armin formulated a megalomaniac plan to bring the entire school to its knees.

He used Jean Kirschtien to achieve these ends.

Jean was the king of junior high. He presided over the jocks with a perpetual smirk and an iron fist of popularity, along with a shitty sense of humor. He lead Shiganshina to the basketball championships two seasons out of three and flirted with every pretty girl to come keeling at his feet. Most importantly, though, he stood as the centrifuge of Armin's bullying - playing the role of a feudal lord, feeding the beast of violence from a detached seat of power. Usually, he was pretty mellow, but there was a distinct streak of _weakness_ within him that Armin quickly picked up on; a strange vulnerability and a deep undercurrent of desperation for acceptance. As Armin's plan developed, Jean's desperation fanned the flames of hatred within him.

And so, the blonde boy went from _angel_ to _demon_ in the blink of an eye. He snatched up Jean in a moment of vulnerability after school, offering to help him with his homework and slowly worming his way into the boy's life. To his surprise, Jean was a far gentler spirit than he appeared to be at first. Though he was initially quick to disparage and mock, it didn't take much to bring his automatic contempt for Armin to an end. They grew close, and Jean never treated Armin with the level of disdain that the other students did; he was loyal, a bit cowardly, and extremely susceptible to the unconditional love Armin seemed to represent.

Armin worked him with a vengeance. Slowly but surely, he pried open Jean's heart, drawing every little sad story from the lips of Shiganshina's most popular weakling. The story of his freckled lover; the story of their secret, his family and the throne of sand he hated but was too afraid to let go of in absolution. He climbed the ranks in silence, recorded every piece of information he learned about Jean's vast network of acquaintances. In his mind he knitted together the threads of secrets to create a tapestry of destruction - and all the while, Eren stood behind the curtain in awe.

Once Jean had finally spilled the beans about Marco, Armin entered the final stage of his plan. From _demon_ he further transformed into _incubus_ , and executed Order 666: seduce the Shiganshina prince. Eren watched - _perhaps_ encouraged - as Armin began his trips to Jean's house, administering his eighth-grade expertise in anatomy with a devilish sense of retribution. Jean fell hard, fell right into a great, gaping divide, a split between he and Marco and Armin that he'd dug all by himself. One was the attractive allure of escape, the other was the bondage of love - and Armin held every key in between. Keys that he quickly began to spread, like wildfire, all around the school.

Eren was physical. He fought to survive, to protect his best friend. But Armin was diabolical. He protected himself and Eren by placing them at the epicenter of the chaos. The hierarchy toppled; drug rings exposed, friends turned against friends, and Marco against Jean once the truth came out and the roof caved down. Punches thrown, secrets flown, and soon enough, _everyone_ knew about the freckled boy who'd been crying in the bathrooms during lunchtime.

And it was lunchtime when it all came to a climax. Jean, blinded by hatred and tears, confronted Armin in the middle of the cafeteria. His family had discovered everything, and after paying hell for it, he was prepared to make Armin pay hell, too. Eren stood to fight, but he'd barely made it through the throng of bystanders by the time three teachers came to break it up.

It went on long enough, though. The last time Eren ever saw Armin was in a hospital room. He visited once, traded an emotional farewell with the bitter, blue-eyed boy, and never had the chance to return. Armin was gone the next day - gone, along with practically every memory that he and Eren shared.

Jean faced expulsion and spent - from what he heard - the remainder of his eighth-grade year as a homeschooler. Eren didn't miss him.

Once Armin and Jean were gone, Eren's dreams grew more complex. A timeline was slowly forming within his subconscious, flashes of the past falling into place as more characters joined the fray. Sometimes, he would dream of a childhood much like his current one in a city called Shiganshina - but this Shiganshina looked far different, far older than the one he lived in now. The details were startlingly clear; Armin and Mikasa were his constant companions in this world, and both of them smiled much more often than they'd smiled in reality. Armin was happy, Mikasa was his forever-sister, and his dream-parents closely resembled his two favorite teachers from elementary school. Even Jean eventually managed to make his way into the mix, but in this case it was Eren who'd hated him and not Armin. As the nights dragged on, he began to fit the phantasmogoria together into a larger design: the grand mosaic of his dreams piecing itself into a vibrant, violent work of art, pulling Eren into its chaotic, yet deliberate caper.

For a while, he lived in desperation, searching out names and faces that he might recall from the distant past. The few he found were never able to answer his questions, and they vanished from his life just as quickly as they'd entered. Coincidences brought them together, and strange circumstances tore them apart. Petra Ral was hospitalized in a coma when a car wreck caused extensive damage to her skull. Professor Erwin Smith quit teaching biology to take over his dead father's business. Hanji Zoe took his place, but was fired for inhumane treatment of live specimens. One normal day in the Survey Corporation offices, four strong cops barged in and arrested Bertholdt Hoover and Reiner Braun under charges of heist and arson. Eren began to realize that these dramatic occurrences all had a place in the puzzle of his dreams, all hinting at some foggy truth hidden deep within the folds of his memory. Mike disappeared, Ymir ran away, Pixis made it big in the world of chess. Before he could grow close to them, they all vanished from his existence without a trace; transitioning instead to a nightmarish eternity of carnage and death and wings (no longer on his back, but emblazoned into his jacket), a land with no answers and only unanswered cries for salvation.

The dreams plagued him and terrified him. There was something key, something that Eren instinctively knew - like a child knows how to walk - would unlock the secrets to his analog of past and present. And so the hole grew deeper still, widening into an all-consuming mass, manifesting itself in a single, horrible nightmare that terrified him more than all the others. In this particular dream, he was grotesquely human - green-eyed and gargantuan, not unlike the Titans themselves. He stood in a vast, stone chamber of blackness, with the feeling of a thousand eyes on his back. Blood in his mouth, blood on his hands; a torn cloak between his teeth and the taste of flesh lingering on his tongue. A man made of shadow faced him, holding a blade in each hand, his lips moving with words that Eren couldn't hear. Then, all of the sudden, a sense of agony that might have been death - a knife of pain shooting from the neck downwards, throughout his entire body.

He woke up shaking. Tears came without fail.

Eventually, Eren threw in the towel and stopped searching. Life didn't always have an explanation, and Pandora's box was a terrible thing. Some mysteries were better left unsolved.

He thought that this might be one of them.

* * *

The rain comes down in droves, driving throngs of pedestrians into hiding. In a flush of self-aggravation, Eren rushes for the bus stop, berating himself for forgetting his umbrella on the one day that he actually needs it.

He's got a date with a guy from work tonight - upscale Victorian-themed bar in downtown Sina - and he doesn't want his tux getting soaked. The lady at the suit store told him that the green in his tie would bring out the "ocean" in his eyes, and thus he was suckered into paying twenty dollars more than he could afford for a silky scrap of fabric. Usually, he doesn't bother much with his appearance, but his date's got money; comes from money, lives in money, and makes money just the same. This time around, he's dressed to impress.

Except for this damned _rain_.

Once he makes it under the glass pane, Eren takes a rain check ( _not funny_ , he tells himself) for water stains and adjusts his outfit accordingly. With a small shake of his hair, he checks his watch; thankfully he left early and he's got time to kill. He can wait for the next bus to Sina and watch the thunder clouds roll from his haven of dryness.

To his mild surprise, there is only one other with him on the bench - a strangely crumpled form, one which Eren initially mistakes for a pile of rags. Looking closer, he sees a dark mat of hair nestled within the heap, a pale face partially obscured by a ratty scarf. A pair of closed eyes, dark and creased with age. An overcoat that smells faintly of human waste.

 _A homeless man_ , Eren realizes. _Probably sleeping._

For a few moments, he's overwhelmed by panic. What if the man wakes up and tries to talk to him? What if he harasses Eren for a donation? What if-

 _You're an adult, Eren,_ he quickly reminds himself. _You can handle half an hour with a hobo._

He feels a little silly, then a little guilty. He's being pretty callous.

Gently leaning over the man's shoulders, Eren looks down and whispers into his ear: "Excuse me? Are you awake?"

The lump of clothing stirs and gives a slight snort of irritation. Nervously, Eren inhales, continuing his soothing murmur: "Excuse me? Would you like something to eat?"

In a flash, the heavy lids fly open, revealing a shockingly blue, angry glare. Rimmed with red and purple, shot with blood; but still a startling shade of Arctic sky. The man coughs, reaching up for his muffler with one mottled hand. "Fuck off," he growls.

The message is loud and clear, but Eren doesn't hear it. He's hooked on those eyes. They look so familiar to him, he wonders if maybe he's seen the man somewhere else - but if so, where would it have been? Suddenly, desperation hits him, and he feels the black hole opening in his chest once more. He recognizes that look, those eyes, those fucking _eyes_ \- and even though it's hoary with age and smoke, Eren knows that tone as intimately as he knows the back of his hand. The sensation is raw and hungry, and a sense of youngness washes over him that drives him, rashly, to blurt out a question without precedent: "What's your name?"

The man blinks, and his brow furrows. "Maybe you didn't hear me the first time," he snaps, "but I told you to fuck off."

Immediately, Eren curses himself for whatever made him ask. The rain is still slapping against the top of the glass, gluing him to his spot - otherwise, he'd surely take his leave and run. Instead, he mutters a brusque apology and brings a hand to his mouth, biting into the brown skin like he does whenever he's deep in conflict.

Just then, Eren hears the man whisper - "Jesus _Christ_ " - and he turns over to look. The blue eyes are wide, fixated on Eren's hand, and the pile of clothes is shifting; the muffler slides off as the man pushes himself up with a groan. "Jesus... Jesus fucking Christ," he repeats, now face-to-face with Eren, a pained expression on his face that sends a jolt of horror sizzling from the knot in Eren's tie right down to the tip of his black loafers.

_It's him.  
_

_It's him._

_It's him._

"It's you," they hiss in unison. Green boring into blue, heat thrumming between them with a potency that defies the laws of nature.

The man opens his mouth to speak, but Eren beats him to the punch. "What's your name?" he asks again, but this time it's insistent; he has no intention of backing down. This man, he knows, is the one from his worst nightmare, and although his form had been dark there's an unseen thread of fate that is tugging him towards the realization, so that he knows beyond the shadow of a doubt-

_What? What is it? What do I know?  
_

"You don't remember," the man murmurs, and his grizzled mouth sets into a thin line of excruciation. It's not a question. It's a sigh of relief.

"Don't remember what?" Eren presses, and suddenly a near-irrepresible urge overwhelms him; he wants to take the man's hands in his own, but his own confusion keeps him in place. "What is it?"

"Shit." The man's jaw clenches. Eren can see the gears in his head turning at an insane rate. "Shit.. _. fuck_." _  
_

With a shock of terror, Eren realizes that there's blood on the edges of the man's mouth, dried brown crusted into the knit of his old scarf. And the smell that surrounds him is a stench he knows all too well, recognizes from some sort of distant past - it's the smell of vomit, of decay.

Of death.

And then it hits him. All at once.

"L- _Levi._.."

There's nothing but that familiar darkness on Levi's face; still, his tone betrays everything. "I told you twice already," he says, turning a grey-streaked head away from Eren. "Fuck off."

But he can't.

The world is caving in under his feet, and his lives are flashing before his eyes.

He grabs Levi's arm for stability - and there is no protest. He buries his face into the man's shoulder and begins to shiver.

"Eren," Levi murmurs, reassuring, but his hand is shaking just as badly as Eren's. The pungent scent of old blood is pitching him backwards, throwing him through the loop of time. Levi's breath on his ear, Levi's heart thumping against his own, Levi's rough palm.

_Eren Jaeger is five years old. He's waiting for his father to come home as he plays near the fireplace, half-shivering with excitement. His mother promised him cake, and his father promised him balloons - two things that he hasn't touched since Armin's birthday party last year. His mouth has already begun to water when he hears a loud clatter from behind the bedroom door; the sound of porcelain shattering, followed by a mangled cry of distress. He clambers to his feet, bursts through the door, and his eyes go instantly wide at the sight: Levi is kneeling on the floor, silently heaving, bent over the wreckage of a pretty teacup and a mess of pungent black powder. Eren crawls over and wraps Levi in a confused embrace, but no matter what he does, he can't seem to stop his brother's sobs - "A whole year," Levi is whispering, and it's all he can say as he presses his face into Eren's shoulder, confetti pouring from his lap.  "I'm so sorry, Eren... I dropped it again..."  
_

All of a sudden, Eren begins to cough. Violent, nasty heaves, clogged with phlegm and blood. Unable to control his spasms, he spits the brownish liquid into Levi's hand.

"What - what is _this_?" he demands, staring at the stringy stuff pooling in the lines of the man's palm. Levi opens his mouth to reply, but he can't get the words out before another fit seizes Eren. His arms flop at his sides like limp noodles as Levi pulls him into a strong embrace, thumping his back, murmuring, grasping him by the shoulders - anything to relinquish death's grip on his lungs.

The moment his choking ceases, Eren tears himself out of Levi's embrace, shell-shocked fingers tracing his shirt collar. He stares over at the man, looking for answers, but Levi's eyes have turned to ice and stone. When he opens his mouth, his voice breaks with the command: "Leave."

Eren wants to leave. He knows he shouldn't stay, but if he's afraid that if he gets up he will keel over onto the pavement. And he doesn't want to depart from the old man's side - not while the memories are storming over him like an ocean hurricane. As they rush upon him, an army advancing, it's all he can to keep from being overwhelmed by the stampede. He grips Levi's arm tighter.

_Eren Jaeger is twelve years old. He sits in a dark alleyway, hidden from the nosy vendors and prying eyes of the townfolk passing by. He'll surely get punished by the schoolmaster for skipping, but a few birch switches have little significance to him in light of the black-haired boy whose lap he currently occupies, whose arms he's using to warm himself in the cold.  
_

_"So... you're the only one who remembers...?" he whispers, watching blue eyes gleam through the shadows.  
_

_Levi nods slowly. His shoulders shake_ , _ever-so-slightly, but the motion is obvious to Eren. He's learned to read the boy's emotions, and though the shadows obscure him, Eren can see it plain as day - the tear stain on his cheek, the single, solitary mark of betrayal._

_"What's... what's it like, then...?"_

_Levi shoots him a look that could quail an army - but the effect is lost on Eren. "What's what like?"_

_"Well, you know..." Eren deliberates for a few moments, desperate to articulate the multitude of questions burning inside him. "I mean... doesn't it hurt? Don't... don't you want to die, too?"  
_

_Levi stares at him.  
_

_He stares, then turns his back.  
_

_And Eren knows the answer._

Eren is gagging now, scrabbling for breath as the bile fills his lungs, shoulders jerking helplessly in Levi's arms. A thick trail of mucus streams out from between his lips, down his chin, into the fabric of Levi's rags and between the man's supportive fingers. He can taste something like stomach acid as it shoots up his throat and ejects itself from his body like a broken water sprinkler. Some of it sprays onto the ground; the rest dribbles down his cheeks, and Levi - Levi's a clean freak, Levi _hates_ dirt, doesn't he? And even though it's barely perceptible, Levi shudders as Eren spews another sticky web of junk onto his coat. Something inside Eren pitches this thought to the forefront of his brain, giving him the sudden ability to breath, to regain himself once more.

"I'm sorry," he manages, once he's stopped coughing enough to speak. He can feel Levi hug him closer in reply, and suddenly the boy inside of Eren - the one that has stayed with him throughout the decades - is afraid to look into the homeless man's eyes.

He's afraid.

He doesn't want to die.

 _Eren Jaeger is seventeen years old. He's crumpled up in the Corporal's arms, allowing himself a rare moment of vulnerability in the eyes of the man he loves. Faintly, he hears himself sobbing - angry, bitter chokes, hot and full of loathing, forcing themselves from the pit of his_ _abdomen despite how hard he's trying to hold them back. And vaguely, he feels Levi's arms intertwined with his own; some distant, detached part of his brain is sneering down at himself, with his long thighs wrapped around Levi's waist and tears staining the crisp whiteness of his shirt._

_"Sometimes I just lose control," he mumbles into Levi's shoulderblade. "Sometimes... sometimes I get so angry... and I want to die..."_

_"You can't die," Levi growls. Dark hair tangles with brown as he presses his face into Eren's, planting a breath of life, an angry kiss, onto the boy's smooth, fragile neck. "This isn't about you. It's about humanity. Regardless of whether you like it or not, we still need you on our side."_

_"I know!" Suddenly, Eren tears himself out of the embrace, shakes his head violently as he clenches his fists at Levi's side. "I know that! You've said it enough! But I can't - I can't help humanity anymore! All I ever do is destroy!"_

_His breath comes in hard pants, and the look in his eyes is so wild that Levi instinctively reaches for the invisible blades slung around his hip. He comes up empty-handed, and instead grabs Eren by the shoulders as the boy begins to hyperventilate._

_"Get a hold of yourself, brat!" He throws Eren down, straddles him on the bed, presses the palm of his hands into the boy's ribs to stabilize his lungs once more. The pain makes Eren choke, and he latches onto Levi's wrists in a weak attempt to pry them off his chest._

"Shit!" Eren hears Levi snarl, and out of the corner of his eye he sees a small throng of bystanders gathering around the scene, umbrellas in one hand and pointing with the other. Levi shoos them away, curses at them, denies their offers to call an ambulance. Frightened and disgusted, they dissipate into the downpour once more as Eren claws for purchase on the skin of Levi's hunched back.

His chin is wet with spit and sickness; his throat burns, his chest revolts, but Levi doesn't let him go. He breathes through Eren's black-bloodied lips, wraps his mouth around the hot, dampened mess, and exhales. He exhales, inhales, again and again, but there's nothing except for a strangled plea in reply. It's all Eren can manage, though there's so much he wants to say - everything is slowing down around him, but the words won't come out; he wants to say anything and everything to the Corporal, the old man in dirty rags, but the universe won't seem to give him a break.

_"I told you to stay away from me," Levi murmurs, gripping Eren's hand like it's his sole lifeline to the world that they both share. "Why... why don't you listen?"  
_

_Eren smiles up at him weakly, returning the squeeze with a soft massage of Levi's arm. "I don't regret it. I don't regret a single moment of anything."_

_"Right," Levi nods, trying to keep his gaze impassive, but coming up lifetimes short of strength. "Right." He shuts up then, because he knows that if he continues speaking, he'll break down completely._

_He and Eren fall into a gentle silence, and their gaze flickers towards the heart monitor by the boy's bed. They watch the shuddering green line as it creeps across the screen. Like time itself, like the pulse in Levi's wrist, it murmurs and falls, then grows strong once again. Like the heat of the sun, it flies then fades, dipping low and finally dying down completely as the night rises through the hospital window.  
_

Levi massages Eren's shoulders as his chest begins to calm. Weakly, Eren prostrates himself in the man's arms, allows Levi to press a cold forehead to his own. Their sweat mingles, Eren's dampened hair falls across Levi's eyes; still, the Corporal remains silent and strong, kissing the fever in Eren's face with a touch of chilled marble skin.

They don't need to speak. They don't even need to try. Eren wraps every ounce of his thirty-something dignity around the curve of Levi's spine, and Levi returns the gesture with eyes full of bitter hurt. It kills Eren to see, to read the angry years in Levi's gaze, but he doesn't look away - if he does, he might lose it completely; the blood will come again, the seizures will overtake him and never let go. He wants to say the Corporal's name, but the man has so many; it won't come to him, which one to choose. He opens his mouth to speak, and out of all the words clamoring on his tongue, the one that flies out is so simple, so meaningless but meaningful all at the same time.

"Sir...?"

Levi's brows furrow at that. "Shh," he murmurs, lips less than an inch away from Eren's. His breath is hot, calming, clear as mud. "Shut up. Just shut up."

"You have a beard," Eren mumbles, and brings a single finger up to touch the scruff on Levi's face.

Levi sneers softly. "And you're delirious."

"No, I'm not," he smiles. "I've just... I've never seen you with facial hair... is all..."

"Shut up, Eren."

His voice is breaking. Eren grips his hand tighter, hoping to give him strength. "I'm so sorry, Levi," he whispers. "I don't deserve you."

Levi's jaw clenches at that. " _Fuck_ no, brat." His tone is like a thousand razors, scraping against the cold steel of the universe. "Don't you fucking say that now. I've heard it too many times."

They fall silent for a minute, pressing their bodies against each other and casting dignity aside. They embrace as if their shared heat might stop the flow of time - at least, for a little while. They both know it's futile. Neither one cares.

Suddenly, Eren stirs, breaking the lull. "Tell me," he says. Holding himself against Levi, he knows he sounds needy - but it's something that he needs to know. "Tell me what you remember."

Levi swallows roughly.

_He's done this before.  
_

"You had to die," he begins. "You lost yourself in the Titan. I was the only one to do it. I was the only one left. Everyone else who loved you was gone - and I've been paying the price ever since."

Eren looks at him.

"You want me to keep going?"

_Yes._

So Levi continues: "I remember the moment I understood everything, the moment it all came together in my head. It wasn't the first time I'd failed. Or even the fifth. Or the twentieth." He glances down at Eren, expression unreadable. "I realized that the moment you fell in love with me was the moment you'd remember everything - and then, you had to die. I don't understand why. God knows, god knows I'd sell my soul to stop it. I don't know how to save you. I've come close before, I think. I've lived lives where I almost never met you, where I was this close to dying and our paths had yet to cross. But it always happened. Inevitably."

Eren looks at him.

He looks, and looks, and looks.

"How many times have you... told me this?"

His form is shrouded in shadow again, just as it was in the nightmares. But now Eren knows that they were more than nightmares. He knows, and he wishes he didn't.

"Every single time."

Eren doesn't move. It hurts to breathe.

"You smell... you smell like sickness," he says, quietly, inhaling Levi's musky scent.

"I came here to die."

_Levi._

Eren presses his forehead to the man's damp brow, eyes squeezed shut with tears. The pain in his chest is so bad that he can hardly feel it - there is only shock; shock, and a burning desire to scream Levi's name to the heavy, black heavens.

_Don't leave me._

He shudders. The passersby stare at him, point and murmur, but he doesn't see. Levi waves his hands at them, over Eren's head, throwing them the bird and a glare of violent despair.

"Don't leave me," he whispers, burying his face into the tatters of Levi's coat.

Ad infinitum. Again and again.

"I'm not going to," Levi whispers.

The rain grows quieter, eventually fading to a weak pitter-patter on the glass roof. The bus has come and gone. Cars race by, footsteps, faint voices echo in the back of his mind - the hustle and bustle of humanity, the passing of time in a universe where love is already dead or dying. The sky is now dark, lit solely by streetlamps and stars. Somehow, though, still - the tears won't come to Eren, and he cannot bring himself to let go.

_Ten years. Twenty. A hundred.  
_

He'd known since the day he was born, a million lives ago, that it was destined to end this way. There were always dreams. He never knew why they hurt him, but they did nonetheless.

_Eren, why are you crying?_

Mikasa's words ring through his memories, sharp and clear.

_Don't you dare tell anyone I was crying._

A hundred separate men, living a hundred separate lives. Maybe even five hundred. Maybe a thousand. All share one thing, though: they live in a world without the person they love. And now he can hear them all laugh at him; across the barrier of time and space, in the faces of the stars that mock him.

In that moment, Eren lifts up a silent, fervid prayer; one whispered into the cold stiffness of Levi's skin, or perhaps not whispered at all. And then he raises it to the sky, the untold stories in the heavens, to his past and future self - to the boy two thousand years from now.

_Save us._

He's tired, weak, and sick. He can't will himself to move from Levi's side.

He's _tired._

He's so very, very tired.

"Will I... will I see you again, then?"

Levi looks down at him, eyes gleaming through the darkness. "I don't know," he says.

"Don't cry," Eren begs. "Please."

"I'm not crying." He's lying through his teeth. The tears are congealing, hardening like crystals in his throat. Eren can hear him fight through each and every one. "I came so close to making it this time, without you... but shit. Fuck it all. Karma's a fucking whore."

"You're a saint, Levi."

Despite himself, despite the insanity of it all, a grin begins to spread itself across Eren's face.

"How am I a saint?" Levi hisses. He doesn't share the smile. "I'm a fucking joke. I can't save you. I failed you once, and I've failed every time since. _Fuck_." The Corporal clutches at his heart, and it's terrifying to see; sharp, shallow gasps escape from his lips as if someone was kicking him in the gut. His pain is more palpable than fire.

Eren looks up him. Levi raises his head, trying to glance away, but the light from the lamps catches his face at a telltale angle.

He's crying.

In that moment, Eren has never felt so helpless.

What comes out of his mouth next is not an encouragement. It's not a resolution. It's nothing more than truth, plain and stark and simple. The only truth that he knows; three little words. The words that he was unable to return to Levi, so many lives ago. But now he has the chance to do so.

"I love you."

Levi glances downwards. He inhales.

Slowly, shakily, he leans down to plants a kiss on Eren's mouth.

"I love you, too."

"I know," Eren says. Again, he smiles. It doesn't hurt anymore. Nothing hurts - not the blood, not the chill; not his lungs losing function as the universe gently drains his life away. He knows that Levi knows. And as long as Levi knows, everything will be all right.

_No one is alone in hell._

He closes his eyes and sleeps.


End file.
